blue black, brown black, black black
by slire
Summary: SPOILERS. Post Outlast: Whistleblower. Waylon is ill, and it is a Walrider infested Miles who nurses him back to health through questionable methods. Told through a fucked up version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Slash.


**Disclaimer: **Outlast © Red Barrels

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**blue black, brown black, black black**

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_It was not Grace's pride that kept her going during the days when fall came and the trees were losing their leaves, but more of the trance like state that descends on animals whose lives are threatened, a state in which the body reacts mechanically in a low, tough gear, without too much painful reflection._

_Like a patient passively letting his disease hold sway._

— Dogville, dir. Lars von Trier

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Pain reminds Waylon that he's alive.

It takes several moments—millenniums—before he's conscious enough to register anything but the aforementioned. It's hard to localize where the pain is coming from, senses having gone haywire. Malfunctioning computers. Beeping monitors. Error, error.

He feels motion underneath him. He's in a car. The backseat. Wrists and ankles tied, tape over his mouth, blood (his blood? Blaire's? Gl—?) in his eyes and he can't see. He tries to scream but it comes out as a hum. The panic is shoved aside by a more pressing matter, inflicting a deep, deep dread:

He's ill.

He imagines Mount Massive Asylum smeared on his skin, seeping through his pores, poisoning his soul.

Along with the memories comes an incredible urge to hurl. And he was always so _logical_, with good grades and a good family and a good job, and therefore knows the high probability of him choking to death on his own vomit. That, or the gut wound will kill him. The intestines untangle, the stomach acid rises, the organs corrode... He arches forward, feeling spew in his throat like curdled milk worming its way upwards. The sickness feasts inside him. The fever makes him delirious.

Error, error, error. No restart button.

('_01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000__01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000__01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000__01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000__01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000__01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000—_')

The tape dissolves. It becomes smoke like, slithering hotly across his lips. Waylon thanks the entity by retching all over the car seat. He croaks out, "Help, pl—_please_... I'm _sick_..."

"Shut the fuck up."

It sounds like several people talking at once, or voices overlapping in some sound distortion program. Hitch pitched, low pitched, all at once. Distinctly human, and not. Masculine, though. All around angry.

The illness engulfs him. He retches once more before passing out, slipping into half conscious fever dreams.

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The car stops at one point.

Waylon is vaguely aware of being dragged through a blur of streetlights and shining wet pavement. The outdoor air does not unnerve him. He's docile until he sees a construction loom over him and his mind goes _no_. Suddenly he's kicking and screaming because he doesn't want to go back _'please don't make me go back in—' _

"This isn't Mount Massive. Calm _down_."

Having his head smashed against the ground halts the panic attack. He lost his mind in the asylum. Literally. He tried looking for it, but it was so, so dark.

There's a streetlight behind the man's head, and he looks like a faceless Jesus. Maybe this man is his savior? Waylon goes limp, like a vegetable, or a baby with its legs cut off. These metaphors are good indicators of (in)sanity. The man does not pick him up again, and so Waylon lies there on the ground, abandoned. He's back in the prison garden, alone. There isn't anything left to vomit up so he just dry heaves until he's unconscious.

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Waylon dreams.

_Lisa is making sweet dumplings together with the boys, who dip their chubby fingers in a sugar jar, licking them clean. There is a tranquil idyll in the pastel painted kitchen. Lisa sees him and reaches out to him, "Baby you're home!", and he reaches back, reaches and reaches—_

The mere movement causes him wake by the illness' merciless return, but the view does not dampen it. The ceiling above him is too rotten to tell if it's insects or fungi that have done the deed. Nevertheless it results in a sour smell and a chilling knowledge that any moment the roof will collapse on him and smash his overheating brain / hardware. The walls and floor are not better. The room smells like rotten food, and Waylon guesses he does too.

He's not home. He feels like a child. Everything is new and scary and nothing makes sense.

"You're awake." Waylon jumps with the sound of someone else's voice, hollow and double edged.

"Miles Upshur," Waylon breathes.

There he is, in the doorway of the shitty little room. Or what's left of him. Waylon can still see the resemblance to the web photos he'd found when researching journalists, Upshur often shouting and escorted off scene by policemen. He'd had a vocabulary that could make nuns set themselves on fire, but also an unmatched sense of justice. Got fired for it. Now, his clothes are in tatters, dirtied with God knows what. The black mop of hair remains. One can see that Upshur has originally been human—and that's about it.

Thin, pulsating veins are embedded into his face, like mycelium, vine or an external nervous system. The veins run into the corners of both eyes and stain them liquid black. There are more on his arms, which are crossed. ...The Walrider? It seems both of them are infested with Mount Massive Asylum.

"So you know my name, huh?" He strides across the creaking floorboards, taking his time. The air around him shifts, darkly. He looks like a god staring at a mortal destroying itself, fascinated and repulsed.

Waylon presses his back against the wall, terrified. The movement causes him to discover that his stomach and leg have been bandaged. They throb, but are nothing compared to the illness. The sheets are moth eaten, filthy and covered in blood.

"Scared despite being out? Don't worry. I didn't save you just to kill you again, even if you did steal my car and almost left me behind back there."

"Wh—where are...?" The whole of him is shaking.

"Where we are? A hideout," Upshur says. When he spreads his arms in a _ta da!_ motion, he's missing fingers. "When you're a freelance journalist and hated by the government, you need to have a shitload of these. Better than couch surfing, believe me."

Shelter. Yes. That is what Waylon needs, firstly. This room is not a prison, because he can leave anytime he wants to. It becomes like a locker or the space beneath a bed, helping him hide from the monster terrorising the outer world. These walls are for his own protection. A little room outside of space and time, outside of mathematics, making him think of Cantor's infinite sets and _God is in infinity_ and ω0, ω0+1 ...

The mutilated hand that presses against his skin nearly sends him into frenzy.

"You don't have a fever."

"I'm ill," Waylon insists.

"In the head, at least." Upshur pulls back. "Seems like it's up to me to nurse you back to health, and then you can answer the questions. Then, I can find out who you are."

Something in Waylon screams that he mustn't find out, he must never find out, but most of him is just tired. He turns his head away and waits until Upshur have left the room. He sleeps. Awakens. Sleeps more. Viruses ripple through him, distorting information, threatening to shut him down.

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Upshur does not ask. Instead, the water bottle is roughly shoved into his mouth. Waylon becomes hysteric, fighting him. "I gave you a chance. Sat glasses beside your bed, watched 'em remain untouched. Ungrateful son of a bitch."

"N—no, could be... _poisoned_! Or piss, or blood, or..."

The bottle falls to the floor. Some of the water pours out, dirty water. Upshur is unreadable.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm... sick. Very sick. This place—this _place_ is sick." Memories flood him. "I... I had to, y'see. Had to drink of it. Otherwise I'd died, but it wasn't worth it, couldn't get the taste out of my mouth..."

"I haven't poisoned your drink," Upshur says. "It's normal tap water. Clean tap water." Waylon's doubt does not falter until Upshur himself takes a sip of the water bottle. "See?"

It's humiliating, how Upshur have to hold Waylon to make him drink.

"We need to change your clothes, too. They're dirty. Unhygienic."

This time, Waylon doesn't struggle.

With sluggish movements, he starts unbuttoning his shirt. "I want to get the madhouse off me." The intensity of Upshur' stare does not go unnoticed. Problem is, even the clothes he changes into are dirty. But he still thanks Upshur, but it comes out rambling, just like one would thank a ticking time bomb.

Another fundamental need is soon re-established, in the form of moulded bread and rotten milk being placed in front of him on a little tray, ready to be consumed. Where do Upshur find these things? Dumpsters? Is it to make Waylon's entrance back into society—back into his identity—more comfortable? Things repeat themselves. One big circle. Upshur has to accompany him to the bathroom and hold his hair as he pukes.

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Little by little, he gets better. Soon, sleep is not enough.

Waylon misses a connection. Not only to a network / the outer world, but also to a human, feel skin again skin. He denied this need for years, pretending to be a machine at college, ignoring the urge to socialize. [Personality type: introvert. Estimated IQ: 135. Number of friend requests on social media: 00.] Lisa showed him something he couldn't put into codes and commands. _"You are not a machine,"_ she'd said, a tad suggestively_. "You have needs."_

This worsens it, though. He's sex starved. Or just touch starved. He recalls Upshur's fingers in his hair, the first touch in ages. Waylon knows Upshur is homosexual. The tabloids used it against him, although his primary themes were war against corruption and uploading redacted material. Comments declared him an attention starved faggot—and if he is one at the moment, then perhaps they can come to an agreement. He's still sick and still in some sort of drunk, unreal state, view cut from old film stock, washed out and grainy. This clouds his judgement.

Upshur scurries around like some animal, black eyes brimming with paranoia and _something else_, standing in the doorway and staring a while too long before moving on. How big is the house? Hard to tell. There are no windows. The room is cut from the world and Time. A file whose content are not saved, as if it never existed. (No one will know the things that'll happen here.) Identity has become vulgar—something that needn't exist, not now, at least. Upshur comes back, eventually. He always does. The hunger rises in Waylon's chest.

"Upshur," he says, and although it's a whine, it's the most certain he's sounded like in ages. "Fuck me."

Upshur does not need to be asked twice.

He's been waiting for this. Downloading. The bar... stops. Upshur... Upshur does not look...

Focused.

(Is this one of the side effects of the Walrider? Is it sentient? Does it whisper into Upshur's ears?)

Waylon thinks of Zeno's paradox with Achilles and the tortoise, stretching into infinity. Movement without movement. Time passes differently for him. Upshur's suddenly on the bed, crawling towards him. Waylon sits with his legs spread out, wearing only boxers and a wide tee. When Upshur carefully touches his leg, Waylon's back starts freezing. His whole body is a mess incorrectly connected wires and nerves.

But he doesn't want to look at Miles, no, so he turns around to lie at his back.

Everything becomes desire and instinct. Waylon gives himself to it and views sex as commands:

1. Removal of clothes / layers  
>Upshur removes Waylon's underwear without caring for anything else. Waylon looks at Upshur's wrists to see the black veins. They enamour him, in a way. But he does not care that Upshur has a face, or even a name, because all he is for him currently is an object of desire. He needs to satisfy this primal need.<p>

2. Activate arousal, manually (advanced) or automatically (recommended)  
>His blood pumping is a dull black drone of wind in his head. Smoky appendages crawl over his skin. Upshur is excited and the Walrider leaks out of his pores. It almost becomes lovingly and Waylon wants none of that, and without human language, he instructs Upshur to be rougher. Pain is pulse. Pain makes him able to feel he's alive.<p>

3. Apply lubricant and firewalls  
>Waylon hasn't done it with a man before, but Upshur knows the procedures, and goes through them. Two fingers. Some spit. Protection. Waylon bites his tongue until it bleeds. Then: entrance.<p>

4. Initiate procedure  
>Shit shit shit it hurts like hell <em>oh<em>—

(Somewhere in his mind, Waylon laugh hysterically at his digital metaphors, as if he's clinging to coding to avoid emotion.)

"—_God_."

Upshur stops, momentarily.

"I prayed," Waylon shakily inhales like he's talking about sins, "in the asylum... but God was not _there_."

"Maybe they killed him." Upshur starts shoving into him, continuing this wretched closeness, this humiliating act of emotion food. Waylon isn't sure he can handle it, but Upshur wouldn't like being thrown up on during sex, not after the soiling his car and bathroom with bile and distress. "Maybe I did." Language dirties the act, mends in religion, moral, consciousness and other unnecessary human concepts. They go back to being animals, grunting and groaning. In a moment of clarity, Upshur is trying to find a good angle, but Waylon doesn't _want_ that, doesn't want it to be good. He wants it to _hurt_, slamming himself into Upshur, who gets frustrated and slams back, continuing into a bad circle of which the result is pain and frustration.

Upshur reaches down to jerk Waylon off, maybe as an apology, but Waylon _jolts_ and smacks his hand away. He doesn't want anyone touching him there. Not after—

("_Darling_.")

Waylon grits his teeth, stiff and wrapped tightly. Upshur bites into the hollow of his neck, around it, everywhere he can get his teeth. Marking. Another ancient ritual. Waylon already looks like a watercolour painting of cuts and bruises, and Upshur adds new ones on top. There are patterns on his flesh, too, like the intricate insides of a computer. Waylon wants to pick him apart, and in the process, be picked apart himself.

The climax grants a second of death, a little meditation or dark inner calm, and Waylon doesn't care who he is or what Upshur is or what will happen. A kind of love. A kind of lustmord. This is better than any medication.

Upshur finishes afterwards, and pulls out almost immediately. He fixes his clothes and leaves without saying anything. Waylon is thankful for that.

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The fundamental needs are not enough anymore—within his identity, another one grows.

Safety / security. In body, in home, in health... Order.

Firstly, he must get out of this room. Waylon shakily rises, grimacing because the insides of his legs are sticky. At least the soles of his feet are not. His leg is still bad, but bandaged, and he has to drag it behind him. He's been to the bathroom once before, so he knows the way. The shower makes gurgling noises when he turns it on, and the water is thick and rusty. He is in charge now, and chooses to wash with a towel instead. Choosing which clothes to wear from the heap on the floor brings him a strange joy. It's his body, so he can wear what he want and do what he want with it. _Finally_.

This must be a cabin. Yes. Cabins are designed as escapes from society.

He walks into the hall after leaning out to check for monsters. Once one cracks the code in mathematics, IT or languages the skills becomes motorized. Uninstalling these skills will be difficult. He does not look through windows. The idea of a distorted face looking back is too heart wrenching. Peeking into keyholes is also a definitive no (the chance of seeing red, red, red is too high—and later learn the eye colour of the ghost hunting there) so Waylon opens the only door there, slowly.

Upshur is sitting at a table, staring into space while smoking a cigarette. He jerks up when Waylon enters. The hostility is replaced with amusement when he sees that Waylon is limping, for another reason than just the hurt leg. "How's the sickness?" Upshur asks with his double edged voice.

"Still there." Sex doesn't change that. Waylon tries to be casual, and sits down on the opposite end of the table. He can't put his elbows down since the table is full of dust and dried wax. "I can do basic stuff, though. Drink. Walk. Eat. Speaking of eating..." he heads for the kitchen section. The counter is also dusty. He looks around and reaches for some canned soup, only to feel presence behind him.

He hasn't heard Upshur move. But he stands there, hands in his pockets. "I still don't know who you are," he notes, but it isn't angry. Neutral. Uncaring. "Too much of a pussy to be a Variant. Did you know you passed out when I came for you? A Murkoff employee, maybe. Or an inmate."

"I'm not crazy."

"That's debatable."

"I'm _sick_."

"You keep saying that. It's alright, though. I can wait until you get _better_." Upshur has moved again. He's closing in, now. Waylon is pressed against the counter. "How about we start with your first name, huh?"

"No."

"Oh? Then how about I fuck you instead? Right here, right now." Lips on Waylon's neck. The demonized journalist breathes against his skin.

"_Upshur_."

"Are you using my last name to dehumanize me? To make the fact that you tried to leave me at Mount Massive? And there is a ring mark on your finger. I know you're married, yet that didn't stop you last night. You're fine, physically, thanks to me. Your wounds are healing."

"Maybe you're just keeping me alive so that there's always the possibility for murder, later, _Miles_."

"Maybe. 'Till then, I'm gonna protect you." Like that, the Walrider manifests in smoke around him, forming thin tentacles that stroke his skin, heading south. With surprising finesse, they work on his pants. Waylon's breath hitch. "Don't worry. I can use it for violence _and_ sex. Both are equally relevant to my interests." Waylon twists around with the intention to break Miles'—he's not afraid of a name—jaw, but his knee is between Waylon's legs, and the Walrider's powers being so close somehow makes him terrified _and_ turned on. "My my, hard already?" He's biting at Waylon's earlobe. His mouth follow the line of his jaw until it finds his bottom lip, sucking on it. The ministrations are so gentle and welcomed that Waylon supports himself against Miles, trusting him with his weight.

He saw Miles tear a man apart. Should he change his mind, will that happen to Waylon?

It isn't until the hand starts moving down ("_Such soft skin_.") that Waylon pushes Miles away without warning.

"Don't touch me."

Miles raises both brows, but does pull away. "Aren't we in a bad mood today?"

"Why are we here?" Waylon asks, ignoring the question, trying to appear blasé.

"And on the seventh day..." Miles trails off and grins. "We're _resting_. Connecting dots. I found documents and wrote notes and I compare them to video footage when... when I'm able to." So Miles is still human, huh. The memories make his skin crawl, too. "Using yours as well. Haven't gone through them all yet. The documents spark more interest, though. All the notes say are Lisa this, Lisa that... Your wife, yeah?"

"Shut up."

Waylon tries to think through what documents he'd found. Did anything mention his name? He tries to think back—tries to find momentarily clearance in midst of the horror. The RESIGNATION OF WAYLON PARK document didn't go out there and spell it, did it? He could have just been an ordinary worker gone insane. Perhaps Miles hasn't analyzed that document, or read it at all. But he will, probably. There is no way out of it now.

"My name," Waylon says slowly, "is Waylon Park."

Miles raises an eyebrow. "Is that supposed to mean something more to me?"

_Leave it at that. He might never know that you're the one who called him to Mount Massive—and made him what he is now. _But that... that does not produce a feeling of security. The idea that Miles might find out on his own, suddenly and without warning, is far more terrifying than any temporal security a white lie can give.

"10260110756 . I sent you that email. I made you come to the asylum."

Miles stills completely.

Then the Walrider

**screams.**

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He's back in Mount Massive again. Or was he here all along? Hidden away in some dank cellar, a parody of real life. He's still trapped in the game one can't win.

The asylum had seemed to stretch onto infinity, once. 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ⋯ = 1/12. Negative 0.0833333, repeating. Numbers, however they may buoy him, are not the A and the Ω. He's not scared any less because of mathematical paradoxes. God is infinite, and Miles swallowed and became Him. Miles is scarier than numbers.

Waylon goes on autopilot (command 01: run run run runrunrunrun 01110010 01110101 01101110 01110010 01110101 01101110 01110010 01110101 01101110) and speeds down the hallway, bumping into walls, hyperventilating.

"Whistleblower." It is called quietly from behind him, and Waylon's breath hitches. There are no doors, there's... The bed. Oh, the bed. Memories. He dives underneath it. Hears footsteps. And he prays, hysterically, _don't let him catch me don't let him catch me—_

A hand on his leg. The hurt one. Waylon turns around, and stares right into a grinning face clouded by black smoke.

"Gotcha."

The pain as he's pulled out of there by his broken ankle is gruesome, and he _screams_, snot and tears running down his face. His face glistens with it. Miles—the Walrider—throws him on the bed, and Waylon curls up like a child, closing his eyes tightly. There's a shadow above him. "...I didn't mean to... I wasn't... I'm _sorry_..."

"Being sorry won't bring my fingers back, Park," Miles sneers, and smog gushes from his mouth like a dragon.

"...Please, I have a wife and kids..."

"Not after what you experienced at Murkoff. They're dead to you."

It is so honest that Waylon stops sobbing, staring blankly ahead. He can't return to them now, as this madman, about to burst with the rot and illness caught at Mount Massive. "I don't... belong... anywhere."

_**Belongness**__, n. _

_Definition: a feeling of what I don't possess. _

"That's wrong, Waylon. You're mine now. You belong to me."

Therein lies the difference of their responses to the aftermath of outlasting death for so long. Waylon Park, computer genius and moral family man, has become paranoid and ailing. Miles Upshur, freelance journalist and lonely wolf, has transformed into a lifeless, vengeful monster. Miles has a low view of humans and expects disaster. He's constantly tired, miserable and edgy. Perfect for journalism. This also makes him view things at a distance. He's able to pity people like Chris Walker, and does not snap as quickly as Waylon does.

Miles sits down beside him and pats his back. "Don't worry. I told you I'd nurse you back to health. Build you up. It'll be our _experiment_."

Waylon has seen the results of such. He swallows thickly, but says nothing.

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"So I read I have gone through your stuff, Employee 1466," Miles begins. The Walrider isn't visible externally. It follows his orders, but also his moods. He sits cross legged on Waylon's bed.

This seems more and more like some disturbed therapy session, a part in the experiment that is Waylon Park. The closeness is blatantly unhealthy. Goal: establish esteem.

"You seem... coherent, throughout of it. Mostly. Quoting one of your notes, you mentioned that things were ripped out in the Morphogenic Engine. Other things were put in. I agree. The Variants had their interests amplified, I think. You said you didn't know how long you were in the Engine. Did something get stuffed into you? Or amplified?"

_Stuffed_. Like a turkey at Thanksgiving, Lisa would say. There it is again, the dream image of his eldest son licking his fingers, but he suddenly morphs into Frank Manera. ("_The meat is mine_"—a claim not unlike Miles'.) Waylon blinks it away. "I don't know. They played disturbing images, but I don't know of what except Rorschach blots. Numbers, I think... Animals... Didn't experience any after effects. Maybe my sight was a bit distorted. That could've been panic, though." He's babbling.

Miles shrugs. He's lost interest in the subject, for now. Although he claims to be reading over his material, this place functions primarily for rest. "Lisa, or, um, ah, _Mrs. Park_ seems to function as a lighthouse for your sanity. Is she still that?"

Waylon licks his lips, nervously. Miles follows the movement with his eyes. "Lisa is outside in the real world. I... I went to far _in_—side." The last word is dragged out and put emphasis on.

"In the madhouse or yourself?"

"Both." Both are spoiling with unspeakable horror and rotten internally.

"Where there a particular time when she stopped being your light? You mention her in your notes all the way to the end, but you haven't mentioned her _here_."

"I dreamt of her."

"I dream of many things," Miles says. "That doesn't make them real. Or important. Do you dream often?"

"No. I just had one of her and the kids. I don't have any nightmares."

"Lucky. I wish my nightmares were clear. However, you don't seem to realize that you're out. You cast nervous glances at the door, the walls, _me_... You avoid windows. Don't think I haven't noticed." Miles leans closer. "Tell me, did you want me to fuck you so you'd _forget_ your wife? Perhaps you've convinced yourself that you cannot reach her. That entering Mount Massive was some sort of one way road, stretching into Hell and beyond. _Lisa and the kids_ has become a synonym with freedom, a concept you'll never obtain. Do they even exist?"

"Fuck off." This pop psychology Miles is gushing is starting to piss Waylon off.

"Don't get angry. It's a simple yes or no question. Then how about this: You want to forget the sound of her voice. You want to forget that she is obtainable, now. You've been too long in hell. You want to forget her voice calling out to you, because it's too unreal and must be another dream, _oh darling you're_—"

That turns what might've been truth into something grotesquely wrong. "Don't call me that!" Waylon sneers, terror raw. Only one person—_creature_—ever called him that.

Miles raises an eyebrow. "Oh? Did she call you darling? Your wife?"

"N—no. _Never_."

"Then who?"

"Gluskin." The name causes the illness to return full force. He had almost forgotten its hold over his physical body and feels the familiar taste of half digested food crawl up his throat; nourishment he sorely needs to keep down. "He was a Variant... Occupied one of the lower floors. He wanted a..." _Darling. Whore._ "...wife. Told me I wasn't alone anymore. That I didn't need to be afraid anymore." Waylon falls back, looking down into his lap. "He told me he wanted to fill me up. I secretly want that. Wanted. Whatever, I don't remember. Now I just want to re_store_ my mind." He's on dangerous territory. It seems like the only road to go is deeper inside. That, or back, in mind. Back to—

The table.

To be made into... something else. (_"A soft hole to welcome my seed."_) Everything contorts. He's falling back now, far back, and starts gurgling, volume intensifying up to screaming nearly drowned out by the sound by the of the sawbench.

Lisa might've hugged him.

Miles slaps him so hard his ears start ringing. He's not angry. He's sucking on the inside of his cheek, looking like when he sat in the kitchen, smoking and staring into nothing. "A guy cut my fingers off with some bone shears. A nickname giving amateur surgeon, just like yours. _Buddy_." Similarities turn into differences in the way that they handle their problems. It's not as if the two of them would instantly bond over their experiences, not with such different approaches. Waylon vomits and retorts to animalistic techniques, Miles lockes it up inside and makes his emotions manifest as the Walrider. Twirling his fingers (or lack of), Miles smiles almost fondly, "You don't see me crying about that."

Shame blossoms into rage, and some of Waylon's sarcasm return, "Did he try cut your cock off, too?"

Miles frowns. Then he brightens, "So _that's_ why you won't let me touch you. You're afraid I'll cut your dick off." This seems to amuse him, then he realizes the insult, "Hey, I wouldn't do that."

"You chased me down the hall like a Variant."

"You lured me into Hell."

This will get them nowhere. The shrink mask slips back on, calm and collected. "What do you think of yourself?"

The question hits Waylon in the gut. "I'm... nothing. Not right now."

"You remember your names, your job, your family—everything that builds the identity of Waylon Park. That is something. Someone. Sickness isn't gonna change that."

"Knowing about them changes nothing. I'm not who I was before. You were right, something else was stuffed inside. I did not accomplish anything after I contacted you."

"We're _going to_ accomplish something. Doesn't mean I like what you did, but hell, the deed's done. It was morally correct and all that. We need to get it out there."

"I don't think it would be good to reveal it to the outer world. There's so much sickness in that place... Wouldn't be good, exposing it."

Miles looks unimpressed. "Do you think you're able to forget your experiences?"

"I can try. I'm getting better."

"I beg to differ, _darling_."

Waylon shuts his eyes tightly, refusing to open them when he knows Gluskin will stare back at him. "I told you not to call me that."

Miles sucks on his shattered finger, "I once read an article about a psychology experiment whose methods were extreme and controversial, but effective. There was this patient, with, y'know, a phobia for human contact. She had to talk to shrinks through video cameras. So this one guy has this bright idea of chaining the patient to a lamppost in a busy street, and they go through with it. Sure, the patient wets herself and nearly breaks down, but it's _effective_. She gets _better_. I think we should face the problem head on, too. Get out the sickness you keep talking about."

Waylon does not pour the darkness out into the night. It grows and festers inside him, like a lump of spew or a bowel movement stuck in his system. He frequently gags, and so, is defiled with the taste of himself rotting. "What are you suggesting?" Waylon asks.

Hot smoke curls around Miles' head, flowing from his mouth and nose, polluting the air. Miles' scent boxes him in like a perfume too heavy for summer. "I want to fuck you."

"That was a one time thing. I was... frustrated and you served as a sex toy."

"Good. You're refusing me. That shows character." He removes his jacket, an ashen thing. The tee underneath is filthier, if that's possible. "What's the plan, Waylon? Move back into society? Greet the kids, kiss the wife, get a new job? All you're concentrating on is _getting better_ and you're not doing that."

"Fine then," Waylon hisses. "Fuck me and see if it makes a difference."

"Ooh, bad move, darling," Miles responds. He pulls Waylon—pulls and pulls into eternity—onto his lap.

Waylon's imagination does the rest. He's straddling Gluskin, now, bedroom becoming a black room, lit with a hundred hundreds of candles that stretches shadows and deepens spaces. Ah, yes, the consummation of marriage. The tattered wedding dress is on and stained. Gluskin's patchwork suit is half removed, shirt open and loose.

Waylon feels hot and dark **want** well up and ripple in his chest again. He wants dark animal heart, fresh heart blood, squeezing it with his teeth. This is unholy, dirtying his past relations. _There was a time before Mount Massive_, he tells himself, but the thought is fleeting. The clothes come off, layer by layer, and Waylon continues to be in his dream state. There's blood everywhere. Bodies hanging from the ceiling.

(He imagines himself with blood caked hair and vacant eyes, zigzag thread—steel wire?—sewn flesh onto flesh, little swells for breasts, and being completely ruined down under. Hips held in a deceivingly gentle fashion, kissed gently while simultaneously being gutted with a knife, gore smeared all over his stomach. Handcuffs dig into his wrists. Pain, again. He's just a body. Just another sack of meat. He knows what will happen here. Despair, destiny, death. That's what Waylon sees, in Gluskin's mad blue eyes. The end of him.)

Naked and dirty, he feels hands pulling his shirt upwards. The undressing is completed this time, not just pushed aside for fast access. Waylon's imagining takes a will of its own.

("_So familiar. Like we're already wedded. Or are you just another whore?_")

_Yes._ Waylon hardens, thinking,_ Cut it into my skin, brand it into me, I'm just a slut, I'm nothing, I'm—_

"Mine," Gluskin—no, Miles—says possessively, and gives a crooked grin, one eye twitching. The Walrider continues to ooze from him. The distraction is welcomed. But it also makes Waylon's eyes wander to Miles' bare chest, which is peppered with...

Holes.

Bullet holes. Dozens of them. They are filled with smoke, barely transparent. The Walrider functions as a second skin. Miles isn't wholly alive, then. Just a ghost. Waylon stares, stunned.

"Holes in God," Miles comments, finding it hilarious. He grabs Waylon's hand and puts it on one of the wounds. Waylon chokes in repulsion—especially when he discovers that the substance here is the same that slithered across his lips in the car, previously used as a gag. Somehow the idea transmits to Miles, and the tendrils reappear to coil and curl around his limbs. Miles smiles. He likes how they look against Waylon's skin, and the sound Waylon makes when he sends them downwards, a mix between a wail and a moan.

"Sex and violence," Miles lazily explains.

"H—hunger," Waylon corrects. He's busy with spreading his legs, body lifted slightly over Miles.

"Mine," Miles repeats. Waylon feels Miles begin the preparation, and Waylon couldn't care less that it isn't his hand doing the work. He's beginning to develop a taste for this. The tendrils thicken in some places, and Miles' wrists are humid with them. Waylon is slick because of them. Some of those things are _inside_ him, probing and coiling. "Mine, mine, mine." Miles pushes him against the bed and Waylon pushes back, untasteful words emerging from a tasteful mouth, and _God_, this scene will haunt him in his dreams. They're just bodies. But Miles likes his, and he likes Miles'. Though it disgusts them both, they are enamoured with each other—_in love_ being too crude a phrase.

The nasty business continues. They don't bother with condoms this time, too infested / invested in this to care. Miles replaces the tendrils with his cock, slower this time. Waylon doesn't really like the riding position, but he guesses this is a part of facing his problems, literally.

"Hurry," Waylon urges.

"No way," Miles answers. He obviously prides himself on his abilities in bed, and he's going to make this pleasurable. _Fucker_.

Waylon has an idea and grinds out, "Buddy."

Miles freezes. Then he starts laughing, tone hysterical. He shoves Waylon down a bit harshly, a little punishment, smile amused but forced. "Trying to use my methods against me? Clever." Because then he starts going even slower, the exact opposite of what Waylon wants.

"Bastard."

"Mhmm." The room is hazy with smoke. "Continue like that, yeah..." He isn't very vocal, but he does not seem to mind that Waylon is. Half of Miles is painted oily black. It reaches up to his jaw, like small hands. His real hand touches the inside of Waylon's legs, making him whimper. The other strokes his back. "C'mon... work with me. Tell me what to do."

Exert control.

This is what it has been building up to, in a way.

"Jerk me off."

Miles does, and expertly matches the pacing. Waylon leans into Miles' neck, one arm swung around him to support himself. Miles copies the action. Perhaps it is a misplaced thought of goodwill, believing Waylon wants a hug. Miles' fingers circle the head of his cock, making sure to hit the correct angle as he helps Waylon thrust down on him. Skin talking to skin. Loud. Suddenly the darkness materializes and grips him, pulling him back so that he needs to look at the penetrator.

He expects another face, but it is Miles staring back at him. It is the face of a monster, skin ashen and eyes wild, but he is also physical evidence that Waylon isn't alone in experiencing what he has / is. Miles' every interaction with him is permeated with Godlike arrogance, but this is the most human he's been in a long time. Regardless, negative emotion radiates off him. Resentment. Envy. Wraith. A desire to fuck Waylon with a knife, or something equally disturbing. But it's subdued, and quiet like Miles' own loneliness. Waylon realizes Miles is dependant on him as much as he is on Miles.

"Mine," Waylon says, and he's not just talking about Miles. He's talking about his own body, his identity, his experiences... all of it. He is who he is. "I am sick with you." Not _of_ you, but _with_ you. Like Miles is a virus, feeding on blood. Mushrooms on a tree trunk. Knocking on his skin.

The comment sends Miles off the hook, and he releases inside Waylon, silently. _My angel host, my darling knight, _Waylon thinks, drunk and drowned in feeling, ready to burst. _Let me infect you since you infect me. It is contagious, this sickness of mine. Let us adapt and mutate, together._

Miles curses. His chest is heaving, and he's drenched in sweat. He pulls out, trembling (so, so human), but does not let his physique stop him. He has handled bullets and body parts being chopped off. This is nothing in comparison. He smirks like he knows a secret, and helps position Waylon so that Miles can slip between his legs. Waylon cannot stop his shout when Miles swallows all of him.

_Oh_—

(Is it his imagination again, or is the Walrider contaminating him? The shadow stretches onto his knees, his stomach, his chest... Waylon throws his head back and doesn't care. Thanks to preceding assistance, it doesn't take long for him to come, clutching Miles' hair, gasping. Something in him breaks, but Waylon doesn't notice.)

—_God._

"No God," Miles reminds him with a mouth full of cum.

(Did Waylon say that out loud? He's already red because of the physical strain and embarrassment.)

Miles swallows, wiping the remains on his wrist, grinning. Yes. The teeth are very sharp. He stands up. Waylon is just lying there, spent. Is this regression? Is this just another round of sex? But the next second shows that something has changed. Waylon does not avoid him with his eyes—eyes further away from childhood than Miles have ever seen. Not all casualties come home in body bags. The two of them are walking corpses but at least they know they're walking.

Waylon looks straight at him and says, weakly, "Stay."

.

.

It's uncertain how long they keep it up. They fuck, sleep, eat disgusting food, fuck some more, and this too seems never ending. Though it is a good thing. Miles has told Waylon what is next on the list—self actualization: reaching one's full potential. To achieve this need, one needs to master those before. Miles is more than happy to build up Waylon's esteem through sex. Waylon does not wish to confront the horrors of the real world just yet.

That's not their current focus.

But all barriers break, eventually. Especially when they have become so familiar that Waylon dares to ask, lying beside Miles on the bed, "Why is everything so dirty around here?"

Miles quiets. "Dirty?" he asks, frowning.

"The sheets, the walls, the floor... everything's covered in a surprising amount of dirt. The food's rotten, too. The water system doesn't work. Did you just find this place abandoned?"

"Waylon."

"I mean, it doesn't bother me that much, but I haven't felt clean in ages."

"Waylon. This house isn't dirty."

Waylon blinks. "What are you talking about?"

"The house is _fine_. It's clean. You're clean, too."

Does the Walrider make Miles blind or something? Waylon licks his teeth, nervous.

"You sure have a lot of problems. Illness, pain, filth..." Miles muzzles against Waylon's hair. "You see things that aren't there. Why, next you'll be calling me a monster."

What.

There is no question mark behind that word—because he is truly and utterly mind fucked. He knows the mind plays curious tricks, especially in the aftermath of distress. How much has been an illusion? The smears on the walls still look just as vivid. What if the Walrider is a hoax, and Miles is playing him...? No. He will not finish that trail of thought. Potential swells in his chest. Waylon knows what he must do. Yes.

Miles leans down near his ear, smirking. "Don't worry, Waylon, my dear. I'll fuck the sickness out of you."

_Or will he keep it in?_ Waylon realizes he does not care either way. He's fixed, now, thanks to Miles. Or just twisted into something worse.

Self actualization warps into **vengeance**. Panic becomes a quiet rage, and he envisions Murkoff burning.


End file.
